A Court of Fallen Heroes: Chapter 37 - Uncrossable Distance
Chapter 37
Uncrossable Distance
The morning after Lucien Vanserra brought Thaibar back from the dead, the House of Wind woke quietly around Vythra, as if even its ancient stones had learned the value of caution.
No bright sunlight forced its way into her room. No cheerful tray appeared beside her bed with sweet pastries to wash away the stale taste in her mouth. Instead, dawn arrived in diluted pastels, shy and warm against the windows, spilling over the floorboards like water too tired to become a river. The city below had not yet fully stirred, but Velaris breathed in its sleep beneath the mountain, all blue roofs, pale mist and distant bells, beautiful in a cruel way.
Vythra had not slept much.
There had been a few hours, perhaps, fractured ones. They did not feel like rest, only like sinking repeatedly through different layers of the same dark water. Every time she closed her eyes, parchment waited for her in black lines and official stamps. A face that looked like hers and not like hers at all. A name she gave up on, written beneath the portrait of a girl who had died in more ways than one, beside Malou's stolen face, beside a crime neither of them had committed. The presence she felt sleeping under her bed did not help either, or the black palms trying to grab her from underneath.
At some point before dawn, she had woken with one hand at her own throat and Misty's enormous head resting across her knees.
The panther had not moved when Vythra startled. She had merely opened one golden eye, blinked with the deep annoyance of someone interrupted during an important act of guarding, and pressed her weight more firmly over Vythra's legs. In her old form, Misty had curled into the hollow of Vythra's stomach and vibrated softly. In this form, she covered half the bed, one heavy paw hanging over the edge.
" You are crushing me. " She whispered, half-asleep.
Misty had shut her eye again, no answer offered in return. That might have been the end of the conversation, had a brutal knock not struck the door.
" Vy. " Cassian's voice came from the hall, far too awake and far too pleased with himself. " Vy, it's time for training. "
Vythra's eyes flew open. " Shit. I forgot. "
Misty opened one golden eye. Tragic. I was very comfortable.
Vythra shoved at the panther's head with both hands, which accomplished absolutely nothing except making Misty exhale through her nose in offended disbelief. " Move. "
No. Another knock came.
" Do not make me come in there. " Cassian warned, his tone still hushed.
" You cannot come in. " Vythra snapped, already fighting her way out from under half a mountain panther and a treacherous tangle of blankets. " I am indecent. "
There was a pause. " Define indecent. "
" My tits are out! "
" Oh... All right, all right. Be quiet about your breasts then! "
Vythra managed to swing one leg off the bed, then the other, nearly tripping over the hem of yesterday's borrowed nightgown as the House drew the curtains aside inch by inch. On the chair near the wardrobe lay the green dress she had worn to dinner, folded with impossible care. The House must have taken it sometime during the night, cleaned whatever dust or wine or panic had clung to the fabric, then returned it as if nothing in the world had happened.
She looked at it for half a second too long, then Cassian knocked again. " I can hear you brooding. "
" You cannot hear brooding. "
" I live with Nesta. "
Vythra dragged the first training clothes the House offered from the wardrobe and threw a glare toward the ceiling when it produced something far too neat, far too fitted, and entirely too optimistic for dawn. " Something I can move in... Please. "
The House corrected itself with visible offense, replacing the garment with dark trousers, a plain shirt, and a soft belt. Stockings floated after them like an accusation.
" Thank you. " Vythra said, because she had learned that manners occasionally shortened domestic arguments with architecture.
Misty finally rose from the bed in one fluid motion, stretched until every muscle in her enormous grey body shifted beneath her fur, then leapt down with enough grace to make Vythra resent her. You are slow.
" You were on top of me. "
Excuses weaken the spirit.
Vythra did not dignify that with an answer. She washed her face with the cold water the House provided, twisted her dark hair into the quickest knot she could manage, then opened the door just enough to thrust her head into the corridor.
Cassian stood outside with his arms crossed, wings half-loose behind him, already dressed for the ring and looking disgustingly awake. His hair was tied back, his expression smug, and one brow lifted as he took in her flushed face, crooked collar, and the massive panther now looming behind her shoulder.
" You look terrible. "
" Good morning to you too. "
His gaze shifted to Misty as he pointed at her. " Is she coming? "
" She refuses to be left behind. "
" Excellent. I've always wanted an audience. "
He is very loud for someone so early in the morning, Misty observed.
Vythra sighed. " She says she's delighted. "
Cassian's grin widened. " I knew she liked me. "
By the time the sun began to lift properly over Velaris, Vythra was already in the training ring with Cassian, wrapped in the pale breath of morning. Mist still clung to the stone beneath their feet, thin and silver, curling around her boots every time she shifted her weight. Cassian had not asked about the warrant. That was one of the mercies of him. He simply held out a pair of strange, three-pronged blades, looked her over once with those warm, sharp eyes of his, and said, " I found something you might be good with. "
Vythra stared at the weapons in his hands. For a second, everything else slipped aside. She stepped closer, almost carefully, as though sudden movement might make the blades vanish. " Where did you find a pair of Sai? "
Cassian's brows lifted. " I promised I'll find a pair for you. " He turned one of the blades in his hand, offering her the hilt first. " They're not perfect. "
Vythra took it. The weight settled strangely in her palm, familiar enough to wake some old muscle memory, wrong enough that her fingers adjusted twice before she found a grip that did not feel entirely borrowed. The central shaft was dark, polished metal, the side prongs curved outward with enough grace to look ornamental until one imagined them catching a blade and twisting.
Cassian watched her face. " The shaft is too long for you. "
She glanced at him.
He stepped closer and gestured toward her arm. " A proper pair should be measured from the base of your thumb to the tip of your elbow. These were made for someone with a longer reach. Not by much, but enough to change the balance. " He tapped one of the side prongs with his finger. " And these are too narrow. Your wrist should pass through comfortably if you rotate into a defensive catch. If it sticks, even for a heartbeat, an enemy can use the weapon against you. "
Vythra looked down again, slowly turning the Sai until the pale morning caught along its edges. " You checked that? "
" Of course I checked that. "
" Why? "
Cassian gave her an offended look. " Because I like my students with all their wrists attached. "
Misty, lying at the edge of the ring in her immense panther form, opened one golden eye. How generous of him.
Vythra's mouth twitched.
Cassian noticed. " She commented, didn't she? "
" She said you're generous. "
" No, she didn't. "
" No, indeed. "
He sighed. " I miss when your cat was small and easier to disrespect. "
He was never brave enough. Vythra tightened her hand around the Sai to hide the smile that tried to betray her.
Cassian pointed toward the second weapon. " As I was saying before being insulted by furniture-sized wildlife, these are only temporary. The House found them in one of the old armories. I can't go and make something for you right now as it would destroy our secret meeting. "
Something in Vythra's chest shifted. " I know, but it's enough for now. " It was a small thing. Ridiculous, perhaps, after everything. A pair of imperfect weapons.
Vythra looked at him, then, before she could think better of it, she crossed the distance between them and threw her arms around his middle.
Cassian went completely still. Stunned in the way only a five-hundred-year-old Illyrian warrior could be stunned by a woman half his size, hugging him in a training ring before breakfast. His hands lifted slightly, uncertain where to go, then hovered uselessly near her shoulders as though he had suddenly forgotten every instinct he had ever possessed.
Misty raised her head. It's a hug, not a handjob...
Vythra's face was pressed against Cassian's leathers, so her laugh came out muffled. " Thank you. "
For a heartbeat, Cassian said nothing, one of his hands settled, very carefully, against the back of her shoulder. " There, there. " He chirped with the grave discomfort of a male attempting tenderness without proper warning. " Please don't curse me. "
Vythra pulled back just enough to look up at him. " Curse you? "
" You have the sudden emotional unpredictability of a witch. "
" I am not entirely a witch. "
" That sounds exactly like what a witch would say before turning my bones into soup. "
Misty made a low, approving rumble. I would eat the soup.
Vythra stepped away. " She says she would eat the soup. "
Cassian stared at the panther. " Of course she would. " Then he cleared his throat, recovering himself with all the dignity of a general who had just been ambushed by gratitude, and pointed the remaining Sai toward her stance. " Again. This time with the blades. "
Vythra looked down at the weapons, then back at him. The afterthought of the night before still hurt. The world still waited with teeth. But for the first time since waking, something in her felt less like it was merely enduring.
So she did it again. Step. Turn. Guard. Strike. Fail. Breathe. Again. Her body still moved like it expected punishment from every wrong angle, like pain had trained it more thoroughly than any instructor ever could, but Cassian corrected without cruelty whenever he remembered he was supposed to be correcting her. His attention, unfortunately, had become divided the moment Misty stretched her enormous grey body across the edge of the ring and looked at him with the grave, golden-eyed boredom of a queen judging a court jester.
" She knows I am not attacking you. " Cassian muttered after the third warning growl, lowering the practice blade and pointing it at the panther. " You know that, right? "
Misty blinked once.
" Good. " He praised, as though they had reached an agreement. " Now sit. "
Vythra stopped mid-guard. " What are you doing? "
" Training her. "
" You cannot train Misty. "
" I have trained Illyrian warriors for centuries. An overweight cat should be far simpler than that. "
" That explains your confidence. Illyrians respond to simple commands because anything more complicated would overstrain the species. However, this is an elite predator. She knows more than two words commands. "
Cassian gave her a wounded look. " That is offensive to the Illyrian warriors. "
Overweight?
Vythra's smile vanished. " You should run. "
Cassian blinked. Then Misty rose. The motion was slow, elegant, and full of terrible promise.
" Ah, " Cassian said, already taking one careful step back. " so she understood that part. "
Misty's golden eyes narrowed. Cassian turned and ran.
And somehow, that became the morning's lesson: Cassian testing whether five centuries of battlefield training could outrun an offended mountain panther, while Vythra, half-laughing and half-horrified, was forced to keep pace, call Misty back, and still complete her laps without collapsing. By the end, she had beaten her last time by ten seconds, Cassian had acquired a new respect for feline dignity, and Misty looked deeply satisfied with the moral education she had provided.
Her arms trembled, her breath came unevenly, and sweat had gathered beneath her collar, but the cold had burned out of her bones. For a little while, the world felt less like parchment and accusation, and more like stone, muscle, ridiculous panthers, and the simple demand to remain standing.
They did not return through the main corridors.
That had been Cassian's rule from the beginning: if one intended to do something secretly, one should not then parade through the House smelling of sweat. So he took the longer way around, wings flaring once before he launched toward another terrace, leaving Vythra with a pointed order to wash, breathe, and not look like she had just spent dawn being chased by a panther she allegedly owned.
Misty, who considered herself slandered by the word owned, stalked beside Vythra with the solemn dignity of a monarch returning from a successful military campaign. He runs well for something so large.
" You almost bit his foot. "
I was testing his reflexes.
" You were punishing him for calling you overweight. "
Both can be true.
Vythra slipped inside through one of the quieter side doors, the House opening it before she touched the handle. The corridor beyond was empty, washed in pale morning and the faint smell of polished wood, as though the House had decided to aid the crime by pretending not to notice her. Even so, she moved carefully, keeping close to the wall, breathing through the soreness in her ribs and the lingering tremble in her thighs. It was ridiculous, perhaps, to hide training in a place where half the walls had opinions and the staircases rearranged themselves according to mood, but secrecy had become a habit her body understood better than trust.
By the time she reached her room, the sweat had cooled against her skin and the brief lightness from the ring had begun to thin. The silence inside waited for her with too much patience. It smelled faintly of candle smoke and clean linen. The House had already drawn the curtains wider, letting dawn spill over the floorboards, and on the chair near the wardrobe lay the green dress she had worn to dinner.
Vythra looked at it for too long.
The dress had not been guilty of anything. Neither had the table. Neither had the wineglasses, the candles, the polished plates or the silver forks that had gleamed beneath Lucien's hands while he spoke of soldiers moving through Spring. Yet everything from the previous evening seemed stained now, marked by the moment the warrant unfolded and Thaibar crawled out of the parchment like something that had only been pretending to sleep.
Misty rose in a silent motion from where she had thrown herself across the rug, apparently exhausted by the burden of victory. She padded toward the chair and sniffed the folded dress with grave suspicion. If you continue staring at that dress like it has personally insulted your bloodline, I will eat it.
Vythra rubbed both hands over her face. " Please don't. I think it's expensive. "
Even better.
Despite herself, a tired breath escaped her. Not quite a laugh, but close enough that Misty looked satisfied and stretched luxuriously, arching her powerful back until the bones cracked beneath her fur. The panther had not once returned to her smaller body since the transformation. Not during the dinner, not in the corridors, not while climbing onto Vythra's bed with the audacity of a creature half the size of a wardrobe. She seemed to have discovered majesty and decided it suited her moral character.
The House opened the wardrobe. A simple dark dress appeared first, then vanished. A pair of trousers followed, hesitated in midair, then slipped back into the shadows of the wardrobe as if the House had changed its mind. At last, it offered her a plain deep-blue gown with long sleeves and a neckline modest enough for her mending study with Madja. It floated toward her with the faintest rustle.
" I'm not going to breakfast dressed like a widow. " Vythra objected.
The gown drifted higher.
Misty sat beside the bed and yawned, exposing a row of teeth that made the entire room feel less domestic. The house believes mourning suits you.
" The House can believe quietly. "
A drawer opened. Stockings appeared. Vythra stared at them. " I am being bullied by architecture. "
You started losing the battle when you thanked a staircase.
She dressed slowly. Every movement reminded her of the Bog, not as pain exactly, but as residue: a tightness in the muscles, a faint pull beneath her ribs, a soreness at the places where fear had lived too long and taken up tenancy. The scratches had healed. The bruises had faded. Even the wound in her thigh had become more memory than injury under Madja's care. But beneath the skin, something had not returned properly to its place. Her body felt like a room after strangers had searched it, everything intact at a glance and yet subtly disturbed, drawers closed wrong, dust shifted, one beloved object missing.
The pendant. Her hand went automatically to her throat and found only skin.
The spider-realm pendant, old and strange and powerful enough to hum against her sternum, had gone into Death's hands because Death had asked and because Vythra had understood, in that terrible moment, that escape always had a price. She had not thought beyond survival. She had given away the thing that might have anchored her, shielded her. Now the hollow at her throat felt less like absence and more like an open door.
Misty's tail swept once across the rug. You are doing the face again.
Vythra crossed the room and opened the door before the panther could throw any more witty remarks. The corridor beyond was quiet, lit lamps that had dimmed themselves respectfully. Somewhere below, the House moved with soft domestic purpose: pans settling, kettles filling, doors opening for people who did not always thank them. Voices drifted faintly from another level, too low to distinguish, but familiar enough to tighten something in her chest before she had reason to name it.
Madja would expect her later. Rhysand would have reports. Lucien would have slept little, if at all, and Feyre would be pretending not to think of Spring while thinking of nothing else. Azriel...
She stopped the thought before it finished. Misty brushed past her, vast and silent, forcing Vythra to be shouldered into the wall. Walk. Thinking is making you slow.
She followed panther down the corridor.
The House had widened the passage for Misty. Or perhaps it had always been wide enough and Vythra had never noticed because she had not been escorted by a mountain panther before. Either way, doors seemed to shift away from them as they passed, rugs smoothing themselves beneath massive paws, small decorative tables edging discreetly toward the walls as if they valued their carved legs. Misty noticed, of course. Her steps became slower, more regal, tail lifting with unbearable satisfaction.
" You're enjoying this too much. "
I am receiving the respect I have always deserved.
" You used to fit in a laundry basket. "
And yet I was still superior.
They descended toward the lower levels, not toward the dining room yet, but toward the quieter side of the House where corridors ran near storage rooms, service passages and the kitchen. Vythra had a purpose before breakfast, before Madjar: she needed to collect what she could for the garden elf: a little wine, whatever meat remained from dinner, sugar if the House allowed theft from its pantry, perhaps a few coins from the small purse Feyre had insisted she keep for Velaris, and something more valuable than all of them.
The clothes from the Bog.
She did not know why she had kept them. Perhaps because throwing them away felt too much like pretending the Bog had ended when they left it. Perhaps because the fabric still carried proof that it had happened: mud ground into seams no washing could fully cleanse, faint dark stains where blood had dried, the memory of a shared secret between her and the Shadowsinger.
The House had hidden them from sight, but not from her.
Vythra found the bundle in a narrow storage room behind stacked linens and jars of preserved fruit. The door opened before she touched the handle, though it did so grudgingly, and the small room exhaled the smell of cedar, dust and dried lavender. The clothes sat wrapped in plain cloth on the highest shelf.
Misty ducked her head through the doorway and sniffed. That smells awful.
" It was an awful place. "
No. It smells like something had followed you home.
Vythra went still with one hand on the bundle. She took the clothes down anyway.
By the time she reached the kitchen, the bundle tucked beneath one arm and Misty walking close enough that her flank brushed Vythra's skirt with every step, the House had already begun preparing for the morning. Copper pans gleamed above the hearth. A kettle sang softly. Bowls of fruit appeared on the counter in obedient rows, and a small jar of sugar had been placed very conspicuously near the edge, as if the House had decided to aid and judge her theft at the same time.
Vythra looked at the jar. " Thank you. "
A cabinet door shut with prim satisfaction. She was reaching for the sugar when she noticed Elain.
The woman stood near the far table, arranging sprigs of rosemary beside a bowl of pale dough. Morning light softened everything around her, gilding the loose waves of her hair, the curve of her cheek. There was flour on one of her wrists and a smudge near her thumb, small once human imperfections. For one strange second, Vythra felt as though she had stepped into a life she was not meant to disturb.
Elain looked up. " Oh... " She recovered smoothly. " Good morning. "
Vythra adjusted the bundle under her arm. " Good morning. "
Misty sat down between them with the gravitas of a judge presiding over a trial.
Elain's eyes dropped to the panther. Her face did not show fear, but something cautious moved behind her expression. " She really intends to stay like that, huh? "
" Yes. "
Tell the flower girl I can do better.
Elain's gaze returned to her, lingering briefly on the bundle tucked under Vythra's arm, then on the jar of sugar in her hand. " Are you going somewhere? "
" Huh? " Vythra mumbled, caught off guard.
" The clothes. " Elain said softly. Her eyes dipped again to the jar. " And the sugar. "
" Oh. No, no ." Vythra lifted the jar a fraction too quickly, then immediately regretted it. " I heard sugar helps with foul smells. "
Elain looked at her. Vythra smiled. It was not her best work. The corners of her mouth turned the wrong way, as though her face had been given an instruction it did not believe in.
Something almost like amusement touched Elain's mouth, but it did not stay. " With clothes? "
" With certain materials. "
" I see. " She clearly did not.
Misty's tail swept once across the kitchen floor. Embarrassing. I have seen dying insects lie with more dignity, two-legs.
Vythra adjusted the bundle against her ribs and pretended not to hear her.
Elain did not press further, but her gaze remained too gentle to be harmless. She looked tired this morning. Not visibly ruined, but worn around the edges, as if sleep had not been enough to untangle whatever thoughts had kept her company after dinner. There was rosemary beneath her fingers and something watchful behind her eyes that made Vythra suddenly aware of every object she was trying to steal from the kitchen like a very badly trained criminal.
For a moment they existed in a small, uncomfortable quiet, broken only by the kettle and the soft crackle of the stove.
Then Elain asked, too gently, " Did you sleep? Well? "
Vythra closed the sugar jar and encouraged an honest answer to balance the lie before. " No. "
Elain's hands stilled over some bottles. " Because of the warrant? "
Because of Thaibar. Because of Niven's voice. Because of hands beneath the bed. Because the name Cyan had looked less like a name and more like a corpse dragged into candlelight. Because every time she closed her eyes, someone dead wanted something from her.
" Yes. "
Elain nodded, but the motion felt incomplete. Her eyes lowered, then lifted again, and something hesitant entered her voice. " Did the wine bother you last night? "
Vythra looked at her and frowned, surprised by the strange question. " The wine? Why? "
Elain's fingers pressed lightly into the dough. " You seemed... flushed, at one point. I thought perhaps the House had chosen something too strong. "
The kitchen seemed suddenly quieter.
Misty's head turned. Vythra felt the panther's attention sharpen beside her.
Then the cabinet above the counter opened by itself. A bottle of wine slid forward.
Not the dark bottle from dinner, with its foreign label and deep red wax seal, but one of the House's own: pale glass, silver stopper, the kind it usually offered with dinner when it wished to appear elegant. It placed the bottle on the counter with an offended click. Then another appeared beside it. Then a third.
Vythra looked at them. The House shut the cabinet.
Elain's hands stilled.
The message was not spoken, but it hardly needed to be. Not mine.
Elain's expression did not change quickly enough. No, the problem was: it did change, just not to be dismissed.
" I don't know. " Vythra said, careful now. " I had other things to think about. "
Elain's voice thinned into an echo. " Of course. "
Something about the question remained between them. Vythra stayed near the doorway, her clothes and jar gone from her hands. Somewhere above, in her room, the rest of the offerings were probably being arranged, as though the House wished to make it perfectly clear that while it did not approve of theft, it approved even less of Vythra being caught doing it badly.
Before either of them could speak again, footsteps sounded beyond the kitchen, almost soundless until the last few paces.
Azriel appeared in the opposite doorway, dressed in black, casual attire as though morning had merely interrupted another duty. In one hand he held a small bundle of pale roots, tied together with a strip of brown thread, still damp with soil, their thin tendrils curling around his fingers.
He stopped when he saw them: Elain at the table, Vythra near the counter and a wild panther sitting in the middle.
Elain's hands withdrew from the dough.
Azriel's gaze moved first to Elain, then to the roots in his own hand, then to Vythra. Something passed over his face too quickly to keep hidden. His shadows shifted toward Vythra before he did, thinning across the kitchen floor like spilled night, then stopped as if some silent command had cut them short.
" I found them. " He managed to say after a while.
Elain looked at the roots and something in her shoulders softened by a fraction. " Thank you. "
So that was where he had been. In the garden. For her.
The thought should not have mattered. It was nothing. A handful of roots. A morning errand between people who had known each other far longer than Vythra had known either of them. And yet something small and ugly twisted behind her ribs, not quite jealousy at first, but close enough to wear its face.
She remembered the Bog with sudden cruelty: Azriel shaking beneath her hands, his breath broken against her palms, his hair damp where she had touched it, the terrible intimacy of telling him he was with her now, untouchable, as though the world had narrowed to death and the warmth of his skin beneath her fingers.
Now he stood in a kitchen doorway with roots for Elain. And Vythra, who had survived prisons and men with torches, felt absurdly, humiliatingly in the way.
Elain reached for the bundle, but Azriel did not immediately give it to her. His eyes had moved back to Vythra, and this time they remained there. " You're awake early. "
" I had somewhere to be. "
" With Cassian? " The question was calm, as if he already knew the answer and was only offering her the courtesy of speaking it herself. " Or... ? "
Vythra felt Elain's attention sharpen, though the female did not lift her eyes from the herbs.
" Yes, with him. "
Azriel nodded once. " Did he take you to Madja already? "
" No, but he will. I am waiting for him. "
" He should take you now. "
" I am capable of keeping track of my time. "
" I did not say you weren't. " The words were quiet, but the space between them tightened. Concern forced into the shape of practicality because neither of them seemed to know what to do with each other when other people were present.
Elain chopped the vegetables at last. " Will you stay for breakfast? " She asked, and her voice was soft enough that anyone else might have missed the way it slipped between them like a hand closing over a door.
Vythra looked at her. For a second, the question seemed harmless. Courteous, even. A beautiful female in a bright kitchen, asking another guest if she would eat. But Elain's fingers curled around the knife and her face held that careful, fragile composure Vythra was beginning to distrust. Not because it was false. Because it was too controlled.
" No. " Vythra said. " I need to see Madja. "
Azriel's attention snapped back to her. " Cassian is taking you? "
" I thought we already established that. "
" Where is he, then? " There it was again: that quiet, immovable refusal to accept an answer. It should not have angered her as much as it did, but the morning had already given her Azriel standing in the doorway with roots gathered for another woman.
So Vythra smiled. " Probably somewhere recovering from Nesta and whatever fancy circus tricks they tried last night. "
Elain's hands stilled over the roots. The blush that touched her cheeks came quickly, mortified, and Vythra hated how satisfying it felt to see it. She had meant to make Elain feel, for one sharp second, the awkwardness she herself had been swallowing since Azriel stepped into the room carrying proof that he still belonged to old, quiet intimacies.
It was cruel and also the first weapon within reach.
Azriel did not look amused. He looked at Vythra as though she had just thrown a knife onto the table. " Perfect, it means he's really sucked out of any energy. Who would accompany you then? "
Vythra's teeth sank into her lip as her smile went wider. " He's the General for a reason, I believe his stamina could endure some more practice. With me. "
The space between them tightened hard enough that even Misty lifted her head. Azriel's shadows shifted along the floor, gathering near his boots as if waiting for a command he refused to give.
Azriel's eyes lowered to her mouth for the briefest, most damning second. " Your definition of practice is not what concerns me. "
Vythra's smile faltered by half an inch. " Then what does? Cassian's so-called stamina? "
His gaze lifted back to hers, hypnotic and dark. " No, the possibility that you might mistake it for enough. "
The words went straight to Vythra's guts. Her breath caught, but only for a second. " And yours would be? "
The Spymaster did not blink as he confessed: " Most definitely. "
Elain's fingers went still over the roots. For one terrible second, Vythra had no answer. The anger in her chest did not vanish, but it changed shape, becoming something more dangerous because it was no longer clean.
Instead, she adjusted the empty space where the House had already stolen her bundle away. " I'll wait in the hall. "
She stepped toward the doorway. Azriel moved. Not enough to be called obstruction, not enough for anyone to accuse him of anything, but enough that the broad line of his shoulders filled the space before she reached it. He was too tall in that doorway, almost reaching arch of it, all black shirt and pants and boots.
Vythra stopped before she could walk into his chest. For one terrible second, she looked up.
His scent of cold night and cedar cut through rosemary and warm bread. She could see the faint crease between his brows, the faint stubble on his jaw and cheekbones, the gold dots on his hazel eyes.
" Move. " she ordered under her breath.
Azriel did not. His gaze lowered once to her throat, to the place where the memory of his knife still lived on her skin, where the bruised ghosts of his fingerprints had not fully vanished. Something in his face broke by a fraction before he lowered his head, the tip of his nose sending sparks across her earlobe. " Forgive me... "
Vythra's spine tightened as she adjusted the distance between their faces, now fully staring into the ceiling to accomodate the distance. " You are repentant of all your sins. Now move. " She shifted to pass on his left.
" No. "
The word angered her. But beneath it, something else curled, hot and humiliating, because he looked almost pathetic in his refusal, and suddenly a secret fetish of hers surfaced with this moment. His bodily heat became too much to resist and she pushed at his flexed abdomen, keeping her palm flat on the silky cotton of his shirt. A row of muscles spasmed under her touch.
" Why not? " She fisted his clothes as he came close again to her face.
" Because I do not wish to. " Azriel moved again when she tried to slip past him. He was not touching her, not trapping her in any way that could be named. There was another exit, the one closer to Elain, if Vythra truly wanted to take it. He was simply there: a wall of wings, shadows and stubbornness, his body molding with hers as though some instinct inside him refused to let her leave upset.
Misty's tail swept once over the floor. I will rip him apart.
"Don't. " Vythra said through her teeth.
Azriel's eyes sharpened. " Was that for me or the panther? " A shadow slid across his boot, amused.
Behind them, Elain's hands had gone still over the roots.
The awareness of her struck Vythra like cold water. Elain was there, watching, flushed and too carefully composed, holding the thing Azriel had gone into the garden to bring her. And yet the man stood in front of Vythra as though the room had narrowed to the distance between his lips and hers.
It made everything worse. It made everything hurt.
Then she tried to pass on his right. This time, Azriel stepped aside before she reached him. Only partly, enough for her to slip through if she turned her body. Enough for her shoulder to brush his bicep. Enough for the air between them to become a mix of their ragged breaths. He had given her the exit and somehow made it feel like another form of refusal.
As Vythra passed, his hand shifted at his side. For half a heartbeat, she thought he would stop her, that his wide palm would close around her hip bone.
Instead, Elain spoke. " Azriel? "
He stilled. Vythra did too, though she hated herself for it.
The woman's voice remained mild. " Could you help me with the mortar? The roots need to be crushed before the dough rises too much. "
Your girlfriend is calling for you, she mouthed, only for him to see.
Azriel's gaze remained on Vythra's profile for one more second, and something inside her twisted with the stupid, wounded hope that he might refuse. That he might say he had other duties: her. That he might follow her into the corridor and ask why her eyes looked like she had not truly returned from Thaibar. To finish what he promised.
But then he looked back at Elain. " Of course. "
Vythra left before her face could betray her.
Misty followed, but paused at the threshold long enough to look back at both of them. Her golden eyes moved from Elain to Azriel, then to the herbs on the table, and her tail struck the floor once with unmistakable judgment.
Vythra did not turn around. " Come on, Misty. " She made it three steps down the corridor before she remembered how to breathe properly.
The air went in wrong, catching somewhere beneath her ribs, tangled with cedar smoke and whatever unbearable thing Azriel had left behind in the narrow space between his body and hers. Her skin still felt too awake from standing that close to him. Her throat still carried the ghost of his apology. Her pride, unfortunately, had not survived the kitchen uninjured.
Misty glanced up at her. You look deranged.
" I feel perfectly composed. "
You walked into the doorframe.
" I brushed it. "
With your entire shoulder.
Vythra was about to offer a deeply dignified answer when Lucien appeared at the top of the stairs, one hand resting lightly on the banister, his auburn hair half loose around his shoulders. His good eye took in Vythra first. Then the feline next to her.
" Good morning. "
Vythra stopped abruptly. Misty did not, and nearly shoved her forward with one massive shoulder. " Good morning. "
Lucien's gaze flicked over her face: the flushed cheeks, the slightly uneven breath, the hair that had loosened from its braided style and then suffered whatever had happened in the kitchen.
" Are you all right? You seem... distracted. "
" Yes. " she said too quickly. " I have a lot on my mind. "
Lucien waited, with one leg hoovering over the final step.
Vythra tried again, with all the dignity available to a woman who had just been blocked in a kitchen doorway by a male built like a divine punishment. " I am very hot. "
Lucien blinked.
Misty's ears perked. Oh, splendid.
Vythra felt her soul leave her body. " I meant— " She closed her eyes for half a second. " Warm. I am warm. From running around all day. "
" Of course, I understand. " Lucien said carefully.
" I was looking for Cassian. " She repeated, as though the explanation became less humiliating if given twice. " He was supposed to fly me to Madja for her lessons. "
" Ah. So you are a novice. " Lucien's mouth twitched, not quite a smile, but close enough to be criminal. " Do you need someone to escort you to your duties? "
" No. I will walk. "
" A thousand stairs? "
" All of the thousand. It shouldn't be that hard. "
Lucien chuckled and his hand flexed on the wooden railing. " Are you certain? You look... " He searched for a diplomatic word and, wisely, abandoned the attempt. " Occupied. "
" I can walk alone. It will clear my mind. "
His gaze lowered briefly to Misty, who stared back at him with the expression of a creature deciding whether diplomacy tasted better with salt. " I would argue you are not alone. "
" No. " Vythra admitted. " But she is not escorting me. She is supervising the collapse of my dignity. "
Lucien's smile appeared then, tired and entirely too knowing. " A noble occupation. "
Vythra adjusted the sleeves of her dress as if that might restore some order to the universe. " Did you need something? "
" Yes, actually. " The humor faded, but not completely, as he took the last step down and came level with her. " When you come back, I would like a word with you. In private. "
Vythra looked at him. There was nothing careless in his face now. Whatever he wished to say had weight, and after last night, Vythra had learned to distrust the weight men carried quietly across rooms. " About Spring? "
" Partly. "
" About the warrant? "
" Not entirely. "
She waited for the rest. Lucien did not give it. His metal eye shifted once, very softly, and for a moment his gaze seemed not to rest on her, but slightly behind her shoulder, where no one stood.
Vythra's skin prickled. " Is someone behind me? "
Lucien blinked, and whatever he had seen, or thought he had seen, disappeared behind a discreet expression. " No. Just a shadow. I cannot see clearly with my metal eye from this angle. Excuse me. "
She did not ask anything else. Not because she was not curious, but because she was already late for Madja, already raw from Azriel, already irritated with Cassian for being absent precisely when she needed him, and already too aware of the kitchen behind her, where shadows and flowers had been left alone together.
" Fine. When I return, I'll look for you. "
Lucien inclined his head. " Thank you. I am on the second floor. "
Vythra stepped aside to let him pass.
Lucien moved toward the kitchen, and as he reached the doorway, he paused for the briefest second, as though he felt the tension waiting inside before he saw it.
Vythra did not look back. She did not want to see Azriel still there. She did not want to see Elain touching roots that already bore the memory of his fingers. She did not want to know whether he had turned when she left, whether he had watched the doorway after her, whether Lucien's arrival would break whatever she had abandoned in that kitchen or merely make it worse.
" Come on. " She murmured, though Misty was already beside her.
The stairs waited. At first, Vythra took them out of spite.
That seemed reasonable for the first thirty. Perhaps even for the first hundred, while anger still burned hot enough to keep her spine straight and her steps sharp. She told herself every descending turn was distance from Azriel's body in the doorway, from Elain's soft voice asking him to stay, from the mortifying warmth still trapped beneath her skin, from his breath that still held mint and coffee. She told herself the ache in her thighs came from training and not from the memory of his abdominal muscles tensing under her palm. She told herself walking would wash away the prickling sensation settling inside her core.
By the third landing, her mind had cleared enough to inform her that she was an idiot. By the fifth, her legs began to tremble.
The House of Wind was beautiful in a cruel, vertical way, all carved stone, impossible drops, and windows that opened toward Velaris as though the city below were a dream one had to earn by suffering. The stairs curled along the mountain in elegant, merciless stretches, each step pale beneath the morning light, each railing cold beneath her palm when pride finally allowed her to use it. Mist drifted against the open archways and touched her cheeks with wet fingers. Far below, Velaris glittered in soft gold and blue, roofs shining with dew, the Sidra catching the sun like a blade laid gently through the heart of the city.
Vythra hated all of it by the seventh landing.
Misty, naturally, suffered no such difficulty. The panther descended beside her with unbearable grace, massive paws silent on the stone, tail swaying as though this were a pleasant morning stroll and not an act of prolonged self-destruction. Every so often, she looked back with golden eyes bright with judgment.
You could still return and ask the winged mountain to carry you.
" I would rather fall. "
Vythra gripped the railing harder and kept going.
The lower they descended, the warmer the air became. The cold of the House gave way to the living breath of the city. By then, the sweat from training had returned with vengeance, gathering between her breast, dampening the hair at her temples, sliding between her shoulder blades. Her bruises, which had seemed manageable in the kitchen because Azriel had been there and her body had clearly chosen insanity over survival, now announced themselves one by one: ribs, thigh, shoulder, wrist, the pulsing ache on her lower back, all of them waking like a chorus.
She tried not to think about him. Naturally, she thought only about him.
Azriel in the doorway, too tall and too still, refusing to move because he did not wish to. His gaze lingering on her mouth, then her throat, then back to her eyes with the unbearable genial of a male who noticed every place she was wounded and every place she wanted to hide. Her mind race to his invitation: Most definitely.
She remembered what all the people used to say in her old word, about illyrian wingspan and she found herself wishing to be trapped under his massive weight, to be caught in the suffocating warmth of his skin texture, captured by every touch. Then, Azriel with roots in his hand because Elain had asked cleared her mind. Azriel staying behind because Elain had asked again.
Vythra descended another set of stairs too quickly and nearly missed a step.
Misty's shoulder pressed into her hip before she could stumble. Graceful. Hopefully you'll fall gracefully for him, too.
" Mind your business. "
You are thinking about him.
" I am thinking about how much I hate stairs. "
You are thinking about his hands crushing spices for the flower girl or your windpipe?
Vythra stopped on the landing. The city spread below them, bright and indifferent.
" I said mind your own thoughts. "
By the time she reached the final stretch, her legs no longer felt like limbs so much as poorly attached arguments. Her lungs burned, her throat tasted bitter, and the tonic Madja had given her for pain seemed like a distant memory from a more civilized life. She emerged from the last archway into Velaris not triumphantly, but damp and breathless.
Velaris was already awake. Shopkeepers lifted shutters. Someone laughed near a bakery. A child ran past with a ribbon in her hand, chased by another child and a dog that seemed invested in neither victory nor law. The ordinary noise of it struck Vythra strangely after the House, after the dinner, after the warrant. People crossed streets without knowing that soldiers moved through Spring asking for a dead girl's name.
Misty drew every eye they passed.
No one screamed, which either said a great deal about Velaris or very little about its collective sense of self-preservation. A few people stepped back. One elderly male dropped an apple. A young woman whispered something about a mountain cat. Misty lifted her head higher, accepting the attention as tribute.
Finally. A civilized population.
" For once, I agree with you. "
Madja's inn stood near a quieter street off the main road, its pale stone warmed by morning light, blue shutters open, herbs hanging in bundles near the entrance. The smell reached Vythra before the door did: boiled water and sharp alcohol. By the time she stepped inside, she was drenched enough that Madja's assistant took one look at her and wisely said nothing.
Madja was less impressed. " You are bruising faster. " The healer said minutes later, lifting Vythra's dress with a displeased calmness and pressed a new binging to her thigh. " Training before treatment is not an act of discipline. It is an act of arrogance. "
" Cassian called it progress. "
" Cassian has been calling injuries progress for five hundred years. "
Misty, stretched across half the floor like a royal carpet and gave a deep sound that might have been agreement.
Vythra sat still while Madja examined the fading marks at her arm and the wound in her thigh.
On a stand near the far wall waited a strange corset. Vythra noticed it before Madja mentioned it. Dark, structured, beautiful in a severe way, with fine boning hidden beneath layers of reinforced fabric and small silver clasps designed to sit flat beneath clothing. It did not look like armor at first glance, which was probably the point.
" It isn't ready. " Madja commented before Vythra could ask.
" I didn't say anything. "
" You were about to. "
" I was admiring it. "
" You were hoping to take it. "
Vythra closed her mouth.
Madja gave her a dry look and crossed to the stand, turning the corset slightly to reveal a flaw near the side seam, almost invisible unless one knew what to search for. " The pressure does not distribute evenly yet. If you wore it now and took a hard enough blow, it might protect your ribs while damaging the tissue beneath them. And also, I still found no solution for you lower back. It will need some magic screws that I could insert inside your bone for more structure and support. "
Vythra's gaze lingered on the dark fabric. " It was made for me? "
" I thought it was obvious. " Madja adjusted the seam with careful fingers. " And because it was made for you, it will not be given to you until it does what it must. "
𓆩✴𓆪
This Chapter is not edited!
